Dead thumbdrive - what can i do?

I've got a freebie 128MB thumbdrive which just died on me last week. I didnt lose anything important, thankfully. I suspect i must have dropped it somewhere at somepoint. But what gets to me is that i cant seem to format it (using WinXP) or do anything with it now. I tried the Quick Format and normal format in FAT32 and normal FAT. Nothing works. It just says that windows was unable to format it after a few seconds. Any ideas? Is there a stronger low-level format software i can download and try? I'd hate to think i'd have to junk it. Its less than a year old and since its a freebie from a conference i attended last year i cant return or exchange it.

there geting so cheap now it may not be worth ya time. ive seen 1 gig ones for around 25 there is a 4 gig unit on sale this week for 99 hope that helps cause i think ya drive may be broke but perhaps the low level will work good luck

Does it have a write protection switch by any chance?

I've never heard of formatting a thumb-drive. I'd be interested to find out if it's even possible.

I agree with raggie. Unless you want to experiment on it I would suggest to just buy another.

Added: Well, I just did a google search and this article says you can format them. It also mentions using fdisk. If you really feel like experimenting you could try fdisk on it. If you do, let us know how it goes.

clean the contacts on the usb port? wiggle it around allitle? Ive had a usb wireless NIC that I got for like $5. It would only work with a fair amount of upward pressure applied to the body. I suspect the 4 pins in the connector were making bad contacts.

coldsolderjoint said:

clean the contacts on the usb port? wiggle it around allitle? Ive had a usb wireless NIC that I got for like $5. It would only work with a fair amount of upward pressure applied to the body. I suspect the 4 pins in the connector were making bad contacts.

Click to expand...

Maybe there are cold solder joints inside. :lolsign: (Okay it's late and I'm easily amused. )

raggie: yup, quite right there.

greenLED: nope.

drizzle: I'm curious so i'll see what i can find and do. Will post the results later.

coldsolderjoint: Hm, never thought of that. Now let me see.....

Ok. Windows format function doesnt seem to work here. In that link one poster had the same problem but i didnt read any solution to that. I cant use fdisk cos i have no access to a Linux machine.

The contacts seem ok. No looseness or wiggles. Holding it tight doesnt seem to change things.

Seems i am unable to make the thumbdrive work on any other Windows PC. I have no access to other OS like Linux or Mac to try out.

Any more ideas?

I've heard of them getting blown from static electricity.

I format mine. I think a quick format is the fastest way to delete everything.

Make a prank out of it.

If it's one of the larger ones, about the size of a lighter, carefully pry it open, and pull out the flash-RAM, and de-solder the board from the USB connector.

Then, from RadioShack, get a pizeo buzzer and an oscilator of the proper specs, and put them inside, powered by the USB port connections. (I'm not a circuit guy, someone help us out here.... )

Then, on the USB drive case, write "PORN", or "Bank Account", and leave it somewhere.

When they plug it in to the USB drive, it'll start screaming like a smoke alarm. :lolsign:

fdisk was originally an MSDOS program--it might or might not still be available from the C: prompt in recent versions of Windows.

You can try running diskpart(fdisk counterpart of XP) under the command prompt.

AJ_Dual said:

Make a prank out of it.

If it's one of the larger ones, about the size of a lighter, carefully pry it open, and pull out the flash-RAM, and de-solder the board from the USB connector.

Then, from RadioShack, get a pizeo buzzer and an oscilator of the proper specs, and put them inside, powered by the USB port connections. (I'm not a circuit guy, someone help us out here.... )

Then, on the USB drive case, write "PORN", or "Bank Account", and leave it somewhere.

When they plug it in to the USB drive, it'll start screaming like a smoke alarm. :lolsign:

Click to expand...

LOL! You crack me up!
Too bad its a small one.

I've never been able to fix any drive with fdisk through a usb port. I have a flash drive that is now a cat toy.

AJ_Dual said:

Make a prank out of it.

If it's one of the larger ones, about the size of a lighter, carefully pry it open, and pull out the flash-RAM, and de-solder the board from the USB connector.

Then, from RadioShack, get a pizeo buzzer and an oscilator of the proper specs, and put them inside, powered by the USB port connections. (I'm not a circuit guy, someone help us out here.... )

Then, on the USB drive case, write "PORN", or "Bank Account", and leave it somewhere.

When they plug it in to the USB drive, it'll start screaming like a smoke alarm. :lolsign:

Click to expand...

BRILLIANT! You guys are the *BEST*!

I was thinking of something more mundane like buy a hammer and teach it to fear our righteous wrath (my standard procedure for dealing with hardware - keeps it on its toes).

There is recovery software out there aimed specifically at flash drives but if it's not even recognized then probably the chip is fried. Static electricity can cook them and although most of the newer designs have circuits to help bleed off damaging ESD before it fries the insides it doesn't always work.

We issue 256mb drives here at work and out of the roughly 200 we've issued I've had 5 come back looking physically unharmed...but stone dead.

I've always formatted all of my flash drives with the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool.

I've used it on many different brands and it works well with everything.

Its worked for me on a couple that would not format with window's built in formatter tool.